October 2002
2002.10.02
An old lesson but still relevant
12:23 AM PST :: comments: 2The first time I can remeber consiously learning ethics was when I was reading Julius Caesar. In act II scene I, Brutus is considering killing Julius Caesar. Though he has "no personal cause to spurn at him", he worries about what Caesar will become. He therefore resolves to "think him as a serpent's egg/Which, hatch'd, would as his kind grow mischievous;" and then to "kill him in the shell".
And here, for the first time, I truly pondered an ethical dilemma. Is it right to punish before the crime is committed? Brutus decides that it is and proceeds to kill Caesar. I was horrified at Brutus' rationale. It is one thing to crush a serpent's egg. It is quite another to kill a human for a crime that he may or may not commit. And so Julius Casesar taught me Ethical Lesson #1: It is not right to punish a person before they have committed the crime. [more]
-wink
2002.10.01
fall descends upon the clime
11:38 PM PST :: comments: 0The air smells like roasted leaves. The wind is brisk. The temp is chilly. If only the leaves would start changing color...
-wink
2002.09.29
Concentric Rainbows!
10:40 PM PST :: comments: 2Tree and I were driving to Sis' place. We looked out the window and saw a rainbow -- vivid and bright against the sky. It was the most amazing rainbow that either of us had ever seen. We could see the entire rainbow, end to end, across the eastern sky. Then, to our astonishment, we saw another rainbow, larger but fainter than the first, arching over the first.
A double rainbow. A pair of concentric prismatic arcs gloriously painting the sky.
We wanted to pull over so we could soak in the vision and savor it without worrying about crashing. But before we could do anything the sun ducked behind a cloud and the rainbow vanished. Etherial. Precious.
-wink
Lists of favorites
02:10 PM PST :: comments: 0It seems that now is the time of year for bloggers to list their favorite blogs. They list and list and list (there are more, but these are the most recent). Is this a conspiracy to keep me from doing any productive work?!? Where am I supposed to find the time to check out all of these blogs?
Click. Read two weeks of entries to see if I like their writing syle and content. Decide if I'd like to know this person on a more ongoing basis. Depending on the answer, add that blog to my daily bookmarks. Or not.
Move on to the next featured link.
Two hours later, realise that all I have done is make my schedule a lot tighter. Proceed to pare down my lists to make them (and my schedule) more managable again. Resign myself to reading only a small subset of all good writing material in the world.
To spare others a similar ordeal, I shall not be publishing my list of favorites. It keeps changing anyway.
-wink